Protanium

[themutiny]

Anyone come across these before?

Protanium - Elecric transportation - good vibration

 

[flecc]

Protanium is a meaningless nonsense term coined by Schwinn Bicycles of the USA, and they've used it to describe both the motor and most batteries on their e-bikes. The motor is the Tongxin nano which we know already from Cytronex etc, and their "protanium" battery is a perfectly normal li-polymer. They sell their bikes into Europe for resale under various names, in the UK they appear as Claud Butler models sold by Falcon Cycles for example.

If you look at the Claud Butler on the link below, you'll see that it's exactly the same as one of the bikes on the site you've given, in both cases the rack mounted Li-polymer battery and Tongxin nano motor:

Claud Butler e-bike
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[Bigbee]

whats this when its at home

?

From Schwinn site

Doped Nano!????? 3000 cycles!???


Protanium Lithium Doped Nano TM

Protanium Lithium battery in following configurations:
24 V - 9.6 ah
36 V - 9.6 ah
+ 3000 Cycles.
Extreme high safety.
Minimum self discharge.
Intelligent recharge.
Fast recharge option.
Service socket.

 

[Straylight]

Found this.

 

[Bigbee]

Found this.

I was researching nanophosphate batteries.It appears the company mentioned here has had millions of Dollars invested to R&D and make this battery.It is patented to them,unsuprisingly.It appears to have a long charge cycle life with out the extra weight of LiFep04

 

[flecc]

?

From Schwinn site

Doped Nano!????? 3000 cycles!???


Protanium Lithium Doped Nano TM

Protanium Lithium battery in following configurations:
24 V - 9.6 ah
36 V - 9.6 ah
+ 3000 Cycles.
Extreme high safety.
Minimum self discharge.
Intelligent recharge.
Fast recharge option.
Service socket.

Schwinn are so prone to hyping that I wouldn't give credence to any of their publicity. It was they who created the online myth of the Diavelo miracle e-bike which got many excited but which never appeared, though it eventually became the first Schwinn Pacific which was a disaster and had to be withdrawn.

They cannot be that convinced about their "protanium" lithium battery myth since they've now launched bikes with SCiB batteries, despite them being totally unsuited to e-bike use.
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[themutiny]

I wonder if I could get one for my Cytronex?

 

[Straylight]

Well here's an interesting little site that talks about adapting A123's cells used in Dewalt power packs for e-bike use. The main part is by someone who'se running two 36v packs in sieries, it seems though there's no reason why one couldn't run them in parallel, with the appropriate diodes.

 

[daniel.weck]

20Ah Prismatic A123 cells

Well here's an interesting little site that talks about adapting A123's cells used in Dewalt power packs for e-bike use. The main part is by someone who'se running two 36v packs in sieries, it seems though there's no reason why one couldn't run them in parallel, with the appropriate diodes.

A123Systems :: Products

Good prices nowadays:

DeWalt DC9280 28-Volt Battery Pack with NANO Technology - $59.99 - ToolKing.com

Power Painting Tools - DeWalt DC9360 Heavy Duty 36-Volt Lithium-Ion Battery Pack - Factory Reconditioned Power Tools - Bosch Bostitch DeWalt Hitachi Makita Milwaukee Ridgid Ryobi Bostitch

Power Painting Tools - DeWalt DC9280 Heavy-Duty 28 Volt Battery Pack - Factory Reconditioned Power Tools - Bosch Bostitch DeWalt Hitachi Makita Milwaukee Ridgid Ryobi Bostitch

 

[jerrysimon]

When I was looking for a lightweight setup a while ago I came across this

Endless-sphere.com • View topic - Dewalt A123 BMS battery interface solution

Using his little board you would not invalidate the warranty of the battery.

Regards

Jerry

 

[daniel.weck]

Or you could use "cylinder"-type batteries:

New 100Pcs A123 3.2v02300 mah Lithium Ion Battery Cell on eBay (end time 06-Nov-09 14:40:37 GMT)

100 PCS New A123 2300mah 26650 Lifepo4 Battery Cell on eBay (end time 28-Oct-09 17:49:02 GMT)

 

[Andrew harvey]

Protanium are a company based in Luxumburg, who have put togeather a kit based around the Tongxin motor, with a range of rack, frame and even seat mounted batteries.

The original Swinn electric bikes did indeed use these Protanium kits, it was the Tongxin controllers that failed on their trans Australian expedition.
The current controllers they supply have changed dramatically since and the failures are reportedly no more common than the average, when the motors aren't overgeared for speed.

The new Swinn bikes whilst visibly simalar to the orignals are significantly different.

I attended the Swinn 2010 product launch on Sunday, I don't stock the bikes by the way, on .
Their new electric bike uses the, 90 minute charge, battery we have heard so much about. The motor is no longer a Tongxin, it's unlabled but the serial number stamed on the side in the manner of an SB motor starts with BF, I've seen simalar serial numbers on Suzhou Bafang motors. I'm therefore inclinded to suggest that it is a SB motor, it looks very much like one.

The Claud Butler shown on their website was never sold.
Protanium were building their own range of bikes at a competeing factory, the owners of which objected to the kits being made available to Claud Butler/Falcon.

Having rode the new Swinn electric bike, all be it briefly, I must say it was quite nice. It has torque sensing which not everyone likes but the system used gave a nice smooth response as soon as presure was applied to the pedals. The motor was quiet, but I only had flat land to test it on. It struck me as being a promising bike, but at £1500 or there abouts it will have to be.
The quality was above most standards but again a longer time with the bike might have shown up issues which I didn't see.
Overall I would say it's a very good attempt at an electric bike, it has all the bells and whistles and a sense of quality.
The battery may prove to be as good as the hype but we will have to wait and see.

 

[flecc]

Thanks for the information Andrew. I know that once the faults on the Pacific were corrected it was a more reliable bike and one of our members had two of them and was satisfied after one minor controller related fault was attended to. He did not own them for very long though and now has Derby Cycles Raleigh brand models, so the long term reliability isn't known.

Perhaps it's not surprising that Schwinn are changing their mind more than once on batteries given the widespread lithium battery problems on e-bikes, though it is unsettling for anyone considering purchase to see first the li-polymer called a "protanium" battery, then the change to ultra quick charge SCiB and now to this apparently new type.

With what sounds like the Suzhou Bafang motor now with new controller, the latest bike is clearly am entirely new machine with no relationship to those troublesome originals.

I did see the Claud Butler bike being sold from the Falcon Cycles site for quite a while though, so it appears they did obtain them at one time.
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[Andrew harvey]

I have just reviewed my last post. I forgot of that the last time I spoke to Protanium, about a year ago, they said that they no longer used the Tongxin motor.
Take a look at their bikes and you couldn't tell thought. I had a brief glimpse of an Infeneon the other day, we were going in opposite directions, it looks for all the world like a Protanium setup.

I was told who make the battery on the Swinn but as usual I wasn't paying enough attention to remember, if the SCiB is the new quick charge type then it probably is that they are using, it said 4.5 ah on the bottom but from the weight I would have expected a lot more, say 8/9 ah.
When I get chance I will ring the rep for details.

I enquired about the Claud Butler electric bikes when they brought out the 2009 model catalogue, it and the web site were both produced last year, I asked about the bike as soon as I saw it but they weren't able to supply it.
I may have found a kit that performs and looks as good, I'm just waiting for samples, maybe I'll have to supply them. Don't hold your breath I've been looking for about 10 years.

 

[flecc]

if the SCiB is the new quick charge type then it probably is that they are using, it said 4.5 ah on the bottom but from the weight I would have expected a lot more, say 8/9 ah.
When I get chance I will ring the rep for details.

That seems fairly certain to be the SCiB battery Andrew, since they are a fast charge but very low capacity type for any given size and weight. They were developed by Toshiba for car use with a view to ultra fast charging at regular interval stations, very low cell density being necessary for really fast charging. That approach for electric cars is a dead end though, so I doubt any further research is being done on them.

I don't think they are at all suitable for e-bikes since for us the requirement is for the highest possible capacity to weight ratio and ultra fast charging is relatively unimportant on e-bikes.
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[daniel.weck]

I found a photo of the internals of the Protanium motor on Endless-Sphere:

Motors


It's very much like the Ananda/Cute motor we are talking about in this other thread:

http://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/electric-bicycles/5072-more-technical-info-about-cute-ananda-geared-motor.html#post64167

 

[emissions-free]

Schwinn were mentioned when I visited the Ananda offices

I believe that what often happens in China is that an overseas company may get a product built to spec and then when that product has been supplied for a certain length of time or it's no longer required, the design can then be used by the manufacturer. Things do just get blatantly copied also